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Tuesday, 18 December 2012

Lagos sacks 174 LASTMA officials

No fewer than 174 officers of the state Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), have been sacked by the Lagos State Government for their alleged involvement in corruption, overzealousness and other crimes.

The sack was part of moves to weed out bad eggs and reposition the authority for better service delivery and traffic management. Sources said 34 LASTMA officers were sacked two months ago over cases of corruption, fraud, overzealousness, among others.

It was also gathered that two months ago, LASTMA recommended 200 officers for dismissal and their names were forwarded to the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to determine their fate after the affected officers had faced the Personnel Management Board (PMB), a disciplinary organ of the state government. The last one week, 140 LASTMA officers had received their letters of sack from the CSC after they were found wanting in the prosecution of their jobs.

Statistics of the retrenchment exercise revealed that most of the LASTMA personnel sacked were junior officers who had been enmeshed in fraudulent acts, indiscipline, dereliction of duty, extortion of money from motorists, among others.

The Head of Service, Adesegun Ogunlewe, had warned that any LASTMA officer found extorting money from motorists in the guise of the new road traffic law would be dismissed outright as prescribed by the law.

He said government would not condone acts of corruption among its officers as transparency and accountability were the keys of governance and that public officers must not paint government bad to the public. General Manager, LASTMA, Babatunde Edu, had at different fora reiterated that government would sack officers found to be corrupt in the discharge of their duties, urging the public to always report cases of corruption, overzealousness, indiscipline, among LASTMA officers to the authority for appropriate disciplinary measures.

He said once a report about a LASTMA officer was made to the authority, such officer would be investigated and if found guilty, the law would take its course.